


Comfort Crowd

by tsaritsas



Category: The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Jordelia, Sad, Sad and Happy, Sad and Sweet, Sad with a Happy Ending, math listens to p!atd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsaritsas/pseuds/tsaritsas
Summary: All of a sudden, Cordelia shows up, soaked and crying, in the middle of the night at James and Matthew's flat.
Relationships: Cordelia Carstairs/James Herondale
Comments: 4
Kudos: 83





	Comfort Crowd

“C’mon Math, turn the music off. It’s almost midnight.”

That had been around the fifth time that night Jamie had to ask Matthew to turn off the record player. It had nothing to do with the music itself; James quite liked Nine in the Afternoon most of the time. However, it was 11:45 PM, and he was not in the mood to deal with the neighbors’ complaints. James had an exam in a few days and needed the time for studying rather than having to apologize for Matthew to their neighbors who were a pain in the ass to deal with most other times of the day.

“How about,” Matthew said from down the hall, “we compromise and I just turn the volume down some?”

Jamie knew he would still hear complaints the following day, but he didn’t feel like arguing with his flatmate at the moment, so he caved. “Alright, Math. Whatever makes you happy,” Jamie sighed as Math went back to his room. After he left, Jamie rolled his eyes and went back to studying for his exam. He continued to study for some time after that, but eventually he could no longer concentrate, so he picked up his copy of It’s Kind of a Funny Story off the coffee table and invested himself in the life of Craig Gilner. Jamie sat on his couch for the next 45 minutes, reading about Craig’s high school application process and his doomed crush on Nia, before he heard a knock on his door. Jamie sighed and rolled his eyes before putting his book down and going to the door. It was already 12:30 and he did not feel like talking to his cranky neighbors at this time of night. However, when Jamie opened the door, it was not his neighbors standing there; it was Cordelia, shivering and soaked to the bone in a black cable-knit sweater and grey leggings, tears staining her cheeks, which were pink from the cold and rainy night.

Naturally he had no idea what to do, as Jamie didn’t regularly have crying girls show up at his door in the middle of the night. But Daisy was a friend of his and his sister Lucie, and a friend whom he appreciated greatly, and there was no way in hell Jamie was gonna leave her there without doing anything. James brought Daisy inside the flat and told her she could sit down on the couch. So she did, and Jamie sat down next to her. He was about to ask her what had went wrong, but before he could ask, Daisy, normally so strong, had crashed into him and began to sob into his chest. Jamie had no idea what else he could do, so he let her cry in peace as he put his arms around Daisy and held her there. He tried to think of something he could say to comfort her and felt awful when he thought of nothing; if only there was some type of bandage could heal emotional injuries rather than just physical ones.

After a few minutes Cordelia’s sobbing had quieted, so Jamie lifted her off of his chest just enough so he could see her face; it was still tear stained, and her eyes were red and puffy, but James saw her cheeks weren’t so pink now, so at least the cold had gone. “Hey,” Jamie whispered quietly to just Cordelia, as not to disturb Matthew, who was sleeping in his room, “everything is going to be alright, I promise that.” James, of course, couldn’t actually promise that as he had no idea what had happened, but he didn’t want to unsettle her anymore. “However,” he continued, “you were out in the cold for a long time, and I wouldn’t be a good person if I didn’t lend you some dry clothes, so I’m going to go to my room and get you something.”

“Okay,” Cordelia said quietly, the first thing she’d said since she had appeared at Jamie’s front door. Jamie smiled sadly after she replied; it was devastating to see her like this, but he was glad that she had spoken because that meant she was somewhat recovering, slowly but surely. “Alright, I’ll be back in a moment,” Jamie said as he got a blanket for Cordelia in the meantime before walking to his bedroom to look for clothes. A minute later Jamie returned to the living room, carrying what looked like a gray hoodie and some pajama pants that were too bright of a red to have possibly belonged to James; they were probably Matthew’s, as he was somewhat shorter than James so the pants would fit Cordelia at least slightly better. Cordelia stood up and met James as he passed the kitchen countertop. “Here,” Jamie said in a hushed tone as he handed Cordelia the clothes, “the bathrooms down the hall. In the meantime, I’m going to make some tea if you’d like some.”

A small smile appeared on Cordelia’s face at the suggestion, so at least James had done something right. “I’ll have chai if that’s possible,” she said quietly before going to the bathroom to change.

Jamie then took the kettle from the stove and filled it with water before placing in back on the stove. He hoped the water wouldn’t take too long to heat. Cordelia clearly needed some sleep, although James knew how likely that was when one was in a state like Cordelia’s. Still, he hoped some tea and talking would help, that whatever had caused Cordelia to have such a reaction would blow over. Not that one shouldn’t be allowed to feel their feelings, but Daisy didn’t deserve that pain. In truth, Jamie thought Daisy didn’t deserve any pain at all; she was one of the best people James knew and he hated seeing her so sad. Jamie tried not to think about Daisy too much as he took out two mugs from his cabinet and got ready to put in the tea bags. James turned around to look for the tea in his cabinets. All he had found so far was earl grey that obviously belonged to Matthew; Jamie hated bergamot and was determined to find chai for Daisy. Luckily, it didn’t take long for Jamie to find the rest of the tea, and after he looked up from the cabinet, Jamie noticed the Cordelia had reentered the room and sat herself on the couch. His sweatshirt was way too big on her, but it made Jamie happy to know that she wasn’t in those wet clothes anymore. Besides, he sort of liked the idea of Daisy wearing one of his sweatshirts Since he knew that it would be a few minutes before the water finished heating, Jamie went and sat down next to Daisy on the couch. He took a blanket draped on one of the armrests and put it over her shoulders. “So,” Jamie asked, hoping that it didn’t sound as if he was prying, “what happened that you were alone and showed up at my door this time of night?”

Daisy pulled the blanket tighter around her. “I was fighting with my mum,” she said, “because she kept suggesting that I should start to ‘look around’ for a husband. I had already told her that I didn’t want to, that I wanted to wait until I found someone I loved, so many times before. And I told her that, and then she started to shout about how I was never going to find someone if I kept going on like this, how I would forever be alone and other dreadful things.” Daisy took a deep breath.

“You know,” Jamie said, “you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Please don’t feel like you have to. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“No, it’s actually helping somewhat. I can go on,” she took another breath in. “The first part of it wasn’t so bad, but then Alastair heard what was going on and came downstairs and started fighting with mâmân. He tried to defend me, which was nice of him, but then it slipped out that him and Charles had an affair. My father overheard and-well, it only got worse from there.” Tears were spilling over her cheeks again. “I tried to break it up. I love my brother and I know mâmân is fine with it, but my father was not. Eventually Alastair bolted out the front door and I went after him because I wanted to let him know that him know that mâmân and I would always love him for who he was even if our father didn’t, but he yelled at me to stop following him and eventually I lost him.” Daisy was crying now, and it was clearly difficult for her to get the words out. “I know he went to Thomas’s and that Thomas lives around here somewhere, but I don’t know where he lives and this is the only place-”

Daisy didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence before James had put his arms around her again, and held her to him once more. “It will be alright,” he said quietly before placing a soft kiss on her head. “I know where Thomas lives, and we will visit him tomorrow. But it’s very late, and you can stay here for the night. We will find Alastair tomorrow and everything will turn out fine.”

It was then that James heard the water boiling. He reluctantly got up from his place on the couch after assuring Cordelia he would be right back. Jamie went to the kitchen and poured the water for their tea. After it had steeped, Jamie made sure he prepared the tea just how Cordelia liked it; two spoonfuls of sugar, no milk. After he had finished preparing his and Daisy’s tea, James brought the cups to the living room and set them on the coffee table before sitting on the couch again. James then pulled Daisy, his Daisy, back towards him again, this time letting her rest her head on his shoulder. He noticed also that Matthew had never turned off his music and the same record must still be spinning on the record player.

Jamie waited for the tea to cool as he heard Northern Downpour play from Math’s bedroom. Daisy’s cries were quieter now, but still present over the soft music. “I’m not going anywhere,” James assured Daisy as they sat on the couch. Her eyes flashed to his face briefly before moving away again. He placed a hand on her head and began to stroke her red hair softly. “No one unexpected is going to come in, so I’m going to sit here on this sofa,” Jamie said, and he knew of nothing else he could do at this point, “and stroke your hair. Because that’s what I like to have done for me when I’m hurt. Is that alright with you?”

Cordelia gave a small nod before she putting her head back on Jamie’s chest. Granted, the situation wasn’t ideal, but Jamie was glad he could at least comfort her. His Daisy. Eventually, they both drifted off into sleep on the couch soon after, the tea sitting on the coffee table untouched the next morning.

**Author's Note:**

> I got bored in quarantine and decided to write something. If you know where the hair stroking thing was from and you liked this fic, I will write a fic with a ship of your choice for you.


End file.
